Winner of the 2022 Chaucer historical fiction awards, best in catagory: These are the chronicles of those mighty men of Crimson and Bronze, before whom all mortals tremble, so come and see, if you dare, Sparta as you’ve never seen Sparta before…

Written from a uniquely Spartan perspective, through the eyes of Lysander of the Herakleidai.

It’s the mid-5th Century BCE, and Sparta is at war with Athens and her Delian League of subjected allies.

Apollo, in the guise of a Wolf is abroad in the Wide Valley, and there are many omens sighted around the kingdom. And as a new born child takes his first breath, the wolf howls in proclamation that a great warrior is born this day…

Lysander’s trials begin with his first breath and only with the favour of the gods, and sheer strength of will, shall he survive the coming days and years of endless training in the violent arts of war.

Disadvantaged by his mothax status, come him one half Spartiate and one half Helot, merely makes Lysander all the more determined and stronger to not only succeed in becoming a worthy warrior, but to excel to become an elite of the elites, and to rise to the very top of Spartan society.

Lysander is seven years old, when he enters the infamous rearing, for here is where the Spartans are made. The boy-herder is quick to see that Lysander is no ordinary “little boy”.

Lysander is taken under the wing of one of Sparta’s most powerful men, the King’s cupbearer, General Tellis, the father of Brasidas. Tellis quietly guides Lysander intellectually towards his destiny, a destiny that will one day change the course of history that resounds to this very day, in what will become one of the bloodiest and bitterest wars in Ancient times, the war most people call the Peloponnesian war, but here, in Sparta, it’s the Attican or Athenian War.

Beyond the Rearing, high politics and corruption pave the way to a truce after 15 long and protracted years of war with Athens, through the machinations of Sparta’s co-king King Pleistoanax of the Agiads, who takes an Athenian bribe.

In adolescence, Lysander becomes the Inspired of the young warrior Brasidas, “Tamer of Helots”, (a man with a destiny of his own) and commander of those most feared of the Spartans, the 300 Hippeis.

A deep bond is soon formed between the youth and the elite warrior, and from Brasidas, Lysander learns and masters the great mysteries of Aries like none before him.

But there’s another side to the boy Lysander that draws him in into a strange and secret friendship and love affair with a helot servant, Epiphanes, exposing Lysander’s tenderness and humanity.

As Lysander approaches adulthood, war once again looms between the Athenian Empire (Delian League) and the Spartan led Peloponnesian allies. Despite the great efforts of the Spartan co-king Archidamos of the Eurypontids and war becomes inevitable.